contrascarpe
SongDeva said:
Hmm, I know a few single men in a local coffee shop who were accosted by someone wanting to read for them who would refute that comment
Dan
Is tarot a woman's domain?
Hmm, I know a few single men in a local coffee shop who were accosted by someone wanting to read for them who would refute that comment
Dan
Angel Star
I have to agree with Mesara. I do not believe that the tarot is just for women but i have noticed that men like to collect decks and not really do many readings or do more indepth studying. Not to say that no man does readings but more women seems to be doing them than men and applying the knowledge for readings. I men a man once at a magical store who said he liked collecting tarot decks and did not do any readings with them. I even asked why and he said he just liked to collect them and no he didn't do readings at all.
katrananda
Is tarot a woman's domain? Interesting that this came up, because I've just been involved in an on-line discussion as to whether belly dance is a women-only thing. Is it something in the air?
I don't think anything, apart from menstruation, is a women-only domain. I think that men and women might use the tarot for different purposes. When women come to me for a reading, I hear "Tell me about my relationships" or "Just tell me everything"(groan). When men come to me for readings, I hear, mostly "Tell me about my career" or "Can you really do this stuff? Show me." I don't like to generalise based on gender, but I have found this to be true 95% of the time, cliches though they may be.
Women bring a different focus to tarot than men. Not better, just different.
Same goes for readers. I've had useful and insightful readings from men and women, but with different slants.
For the record, I don't think belly dance is a women-only thing either. Men just do it differently.
Katrananda
I don't think anything, apart from menstruation, is a women-only domain. I think that men and women might use the tarot for different purposes. When women come to me for a reading, I hear "Tell me about my relationships" or "Just tell me everything"(groan). When men come to me for readings, I hear, mostly "Tell me about my career" or "Can you really do this stuff? Show me." I don't like to generalise based on gender, but I have found this to be true 95% of the time, cliches though they may be.
Women bring a different focus to tarot than men. Not better, just different.
Same goes for readers. I've had useful and insightful readings from men and women, but with different slants.
For the record, I don't think belly dance is a women-only thing either. Men just do it differently.
Katrananda
Alta
I guess mostly we go on whatever our experience tells us. There have certainly been a fair swath of male readers here at ATF over the past few years. Men seem to write a lot of the books and I have had a reading or two from a male reader irl.
However, I must say it does seem to at least have a preponderance of women in the field.
However, I must say it does seem to at least have a preponderance of women in the field.
gyntista
ferrous said:
Let us say that we had a group of people who all wore little crosses around their necks, and who could regularly be seen carting around and even reading Bibles. And let us say you were not one of those people, but were observing them. You would be inclined to say that these people belonged, at least in some way expressed through the crosses and the Bibles, to a similar domain, correct? Perhaps they would be correctly identified as "Christians". But then, what if I said to you that "being a Christian" included the following expressions of faith:
1. Devoting one's life to helping the poor, and to avoiding making any value judgments about the spiritual worth of another human being, no matter what they actually do in their lives, leaving such judgments up to God. Indeed, following the Bible, you treat your enemies as loved ones.
2. Imagining that God has chosen you to be President, wherein vengeance is the driving force of your decision-making, and all enemies are demons to be destroyed by the will of God---with you as the chosen instrument of that destructive will. Your enemies are quite literally less than human.
Would you find that contradictory, odd, or just par for the course of the complexities of human beliefs and self-justifications?
I bring this up because your question invites consideration of this problem. You ask, "Is tarot a woman's domain?", which implies that there is good reason to think that it is. Otherwise, why raise the question? But in asking it in the way you did, you are also assuming that women's "domain" with respect to Tarot is in some way common ground, that their interest in Tarot shares some common features. And that this interest is so alien from that of men that whatever ground men, as a class, share in Tarot, is impertinent to determining a domain.
In fact, one might just as well ask: "Are men really necessary or desirable in Tarot?"
Indeed, that is a question that has been asked and often answered in the negative. The present condition of Tarot, or the popular manifestations of it, as a domain of practices and beliefs, has been shaped with the assumption that men are obstacles to "progress", especially the progress of selling lots of Tarot decks and books (mainly) to women. This is no accident, but rather the product of a conscious movement among the people who have contributed to making the "feminized" modern product of Tarot. It was done partly for politics and partly with the hopes of making a lot of money.
Why didn't they think men would have offered a good opportunity in this fashion? Because the men attracted to Tarot are mainly interested in its more esoteric aspects. They tend to be few in number because the number of people in general attracted to esoteria, or the occult, are few in number. They also tend to join organizations devoted to giving exclusive dispensations of the "truth" or occult knowledge, or they act independently, seeking out these things in private and without much concern to join forces in the search with some community (otherwise they would likely be attracted to the secret organizations).
The brand of Tarot that has been marketed, mainly to women, is therefore very much a de-occulted version. From a political standpoint this has been thought wise since occult Tarot dogma was largely developed by men and with a view of things that was disturbingly Victorian with respect to gender issues. Nevertheless, this very Victorian thinking seems in a way to have been validated by the marketing of popular Tarot. In other words, the Victorians who made occult Tarot, the Waite and Thoth decks being the two most popular examples, assumed for women a secondary and supportive role, even when they claimed otherwise. This was more because in the experience of men, such as Aleister Crowley, women tended not to be very interested in esoteria. Crowley determined this was because women possessed a quality, by virtue of their "natural role" in life, as baby-hatchers, that men both lacked and nevertheless required in some artificial way. In other words, women, according to this view, had no natural need to think or to look at anything very deeply because the surface of life kept them rightly occupied and fulfilled.
Now, you might say "how sexist"!! But think for a moment about the current political situation in the United States, where a whole new class of voters, something called "security moms", has been created, who supposedly care more for the perception of themselves and their children as being protected (mainly by men) from threats (real or imagined), than whether or not the alleged lead protector is a liar and a religious fanatic.
Is there really such a thing as a domain of "security moms"? Or Tarot for women only (or mainly)? And if so, are there domains for men called "esoteric", both in politics and Tarot, where the intellectual underpinnings of surface assumptions are worked out in smoke-filled rooms? Or are all these metaphors and these assumptions misleading and even dishonestly promoted?
My point here is that the very same assumptions that occultists such as Crowley and Papus and Waite had, that women are really neither interested in, nor intellectually capable of, handling the deeper aspects of Tarot occultism, has in fact been the guiding principle that has forged modern Tarot. It is why Stuart Kaplan abandoned any effort to write about or publish serious Tarot books and decks and instead opened the doors to publishing a continuous stream of pop card decks which seem often only nominally to have anything whatsoever to do with Tarot. One way this has manifested is that the occult dogma of decks such as Crowley's Thoth Tarot has been nearly negated in promotion of "intuitive" alternatives, which basically seek to validate individual readers' feelings as superior to insights one could gain from actually studying the ideas of the occultists.
This has certainly afforded more and more people the opportunity to make money in a subject where they would have otherwise been hopelessly challenged to discuss occultism, but it has led the Tarot-buying and -reading public to think they know something (and some particular things) about Tarot, when instead they have simply been sold a bill of very superficial goods.
So, one reason you ask this question "Is tarot a woman's domain?" is because the plan to make you think it is worth asking has worked so very well.
gyntista
That assumes there is some common agreement concerning "what tarot is about", and that it is actually commonly accessible, even to the group of people who claim to know what Tarot is about.
Perhaps the attraction people have to Tarot really isn't about the things they claim at all. Maybe it is more like the ideas articulated here:
Link removed by moderator
People may claim they are looking for an answer or the answer or even the truth, but generally, as we see in politics and religion, they are looking for someone, or something (like Tarot), to tell them eveything'll be alright.
TheLovers2
gyntista said:
gyntista:
And I say that Tarot is about whatever a person chooses for it to be about. There is no patent on "what Tarot is or isn't," and there are so many opinions, and ways to use the Tarot that I, personally, don't feel that any one of them is a DEFINITE. It is up to the individual. I appreciate the "opinions" of people on all sorts of things, but, it's different when someone speaks as though they are the "all-out authority" on what is or isn't and what others should or shouldn't be doing.
If people work the Tarot to get hope, what is that to you? Do as you will. Let them seek the answers their way. If some people are looking to be told things will be alright, then TO ME that's fine, it's up to them. But, I've found from reading these Threads and communicating with various people that they do want answers, but, they are also willing to look at the (sometimes hard) questions posed them, as well, to gain more INSIGHT into their lives and who they are as the grow and develop. I say, more power to them to do just that if they so choose and they don't need ANYONE'S approval or permission to do it.
TL2
gyntista
TheLovers2 said:
Then Tarot must be about nothing much. For anything truly about something must be subject to certain rules or at least indications governing a correct understanding of what that is and what it is not.
However, Tarot is about something. And it is not about a lot of other things. And one can be wrong about Tarot. "What a person chooses" is really not a measure for what Tarot is about, any more than if a person chooses to drive his Lexus to alpha-Centauri it is correct to say that automobiles are "about" space exploration. Certainly all kinds of things can be irrationally abused according to the whims of "whatever a person chooses", but that doesn't necessarily make those things "about" the endless abuses they may suffer at the hands of the ignorant or confused.
For example, let us say a person claims Tarot is "about" life on Mars, as is indicated by its obvious Martian symbolism and the fact that Tarot was invented on Mars and brought here as a gift from Martians to humans. And let us say that this myth makes its believers feel very good about themselves, for they imagine they, and no one else, know the true mystery of Tarot. But, the problem is there is no evidence to support that myth. If the Martian-Tarot supporters intend to publicly promote their beliefs, then certainly it is reasonable, some might even say obligatory, that people skeptically challenge those claims, and, in the absence of any evidence that Tarot was in fact invented on Mars, to call the claims incorrect in plain language. If that hurts someone's feelings, that is just fine. Feelings are not a pass for promoting ignorance, which can hurt people a great deal more than some hurt feelings.
TheLovers2 said:
Nor do we require a patent office to nevertheless correctly point out that there are many things Tarot simply is not and is not about. There are facts to consider, not just people's ignorant feelings.
TheLovers2 said:
So?
Perhaps there are so many opinions about the answer to the
following:
2+2=?
In "1984" it was important, for the purpose of demonstrating the state's power to coerce belief, that the answer to that equation be left up to "whatever a person chooses", the choice there being induced by torture, but it could have been bought with a bribe (of good feelings) just as well.
The prevalence of "opinion" does not necessarily mean many or most of those opinions are learned. Instead, in Tarot we see something quite the opposite, and generally people base their opinions on feelings about what ought to be true rather than any factual indications of what is true.
TheLovers2 said:
"definite" in what respect?
Nobody is saying that people should be legally prevented from hanging Tarot decks from their nose hairs, if that is what they wish to do. But if they wish to promote that practice and to make questionable claims regarding its powers and traditional validations (in Tarot history), they will and should be challenged. And it doesn't matter how they feel about that.
TheLovers2 said:
“You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your
own facts.”
TheLovers2 said:
That would be a confession concerning some emotional issues you have with respect to perceived authority, not an argument that Tarot is immune from fact and rectitude.
TheLovers2 said:
Nothing, so long as their hopedope isn't pushed as a patent medicine, or something true about Tarot.
TheLovers2 said:
We don't live on deserted islands. One person's ignorance can negatively impact other people. In fact, ignorance can kill.
TheLovers2 said:
Here is a question for you then---isn't it possible that you do not know enough about Tarot to speak authoritatively about the question of authority in Tarot?
TheLovers2 said:
That's really not saying much, is it? And if they do not need approval or permission, they should not mind critiques of their indifference or their questionable beliefs. Yet, they seem to mind these things very much.
telcontar
Hi gyntista.
First: this discussion has gotten quite off topic, I think. The topic is till: Is Tarot a women's domain[\b] And not and what other absurd things you can do with a Tarot-deck APART from giving it to a man
Second: One of the unspoken rules (or are they in fact written dwon somewhere!?) is to RESPECT the opinions of others. If you just want to spread your negative mood I'd ask you to do this somwhere else. Sentences like "Here is a question for you then---isn't it possible that you do not know enough about Tarot to speak authoritatively about the question of authority in Tarot?" and some others in your post are no good discussion style and do nothing at all to improve mutual understanding. They are just a trick below the belt to make the other feel small and unimportant.
As I see it, TheLovers2 has expressed a much more mature point of view than yours and has certainly not earned to attacked in this way. In your profile, you claim you are "learning the Tarot"- how do you suppose to learn without a little respect of the perspectives of others? I don't say, one of you is right and the other is wrong, I just request a little respect for each other and the third party, the ones you're talking about. I'm not a big friend of "Tarot for fun", myself, BUT:
- Even people who do it for fun are bound to stumble about some truths doing the Tarot. I think the Tarot needs neither crusaders nor missionaries to make itself understood.
- The origins of Tarot are quite obscure. The possibility that it was invented for GAMBLING first cannot be shrugged off completely- so why not still "gamble" with it one way or the other?
- YOU are the one claiming to know the truth and judging about others- not them about you, have you realized this? If someone told me, Tarot was from Mars, I'd say, "ah, interesting, why do you think so? Why not from Venus?" and maybe we'd both learn something from our conversation.
- Hurting people is never a good way to make them realize something. Making the world a better place always implies starting with yourself- the only person you CAN change in fact.
Tarot is NOT a women's domain.
Nor a men's.
Nor a pagans', christian, scientist, historians' or sages' domain.
Tarot is a tool. A hammer can be used to break someones head or to put a nail into a wall or to carve something beautiful from wood with a chisel. I don't judge between the second and third option though I dislike the first And as you can't kill with a Tarot deck (or need a selfjustifying lot of creativity to find a way to do so ) I agree with TheLovers2 that there are many ways with the Tarot- and whatever you do with it: the more, the better
First: this discussion has gotten quite off topic, I think. The topic is till: Is Tarot a women's domain[\b] And not and what other absurd things you can do with a Tarot-deck APART from giving it to a man
Second: One of the unspoken rules (or are they in fact written dwon somewhere!?) is to RESPECT the opinions of others. If you just want to spread your negative mood I'd ask you to do this somwhere else. Sentences like "Here is a question for you then---isn't it possible that you do not know enough about Tarot to speak authoritatively about the question of authority in Tarot?" and some others in your post are no good discussion style and do nothing at all to improve mutual understanding. They are just a trick below the belt to make the other feel small and unimportant.
As I see it, TheLovers2 has expressed a much more mature point of view than yours and has certainly not earned to attacked in this way. In your profile, you claim you are "learning the Tarot"- how do you suppose to learn without a little respect of the perspectives of others? I don't say, one of you is right and the other is wrong, I just request a little respect for each other and the third party, the ones you're talking about. I'm not a big friend of "Tarot for fun", myself, BUT:
- Even people who do it for fun are bound to stumble about some truths doing the Tarot. I think the Tarot needs neither crusaders nor missionaries to make itself understood.
- The origins of Tarot are quite obscure. The possibility that it was invented for GAMBLING first cannot be shrugged off completely- so why not still "gamble" with it one way or the other?
- YOU are the one claiming to know the truth and judging about others- not them about you, have you realized this? If someone told me, Tarot was from Mars, I'd say, "ah, interesting, why do you think so? Why not from Venus?" and maybe we'd both learn something from our conversation.
- Hurting people is never a good way to make them realize something. Making the world a better place always implies starting with yourself- the only person you CAN change in fact.
Tarot is NOT a women's domain.
Nor a men's.
Nor a pagans', christian, scientist, historians' or sages' domain.
Tarot is a tool. A hammer can be used to break someones head or to put a nail into a wall or to carve something beautiful from wood with a chisel. I don't judge between the second and third option though I dislike the first
And as you can't kill with a Tarot deck (or need a selfjustifying lot of creativity to find a way to do so ) I agree with TheLovers2 that there are many ways with the Tarot- and whatever you do with it: the more, the bettergyntista
telcontar said:First: this discussion has gotten quite off topic, I think. The topic is till: Is Tarot a women's domain[\b] And not and what other absurd things you can do with a Tarot-deck APART from giving it to a man
Perhaps the fact you see things that way demonstrates that the discussion hasn't gotten offtopic at all. One of the principles necessarily promoted in the "women's domain" of Tarot is that the truth needed to be avoided, and people's ignorant opinions praised as a democratic impulse. Unfortunately, that impulse was not aided by an informed discussion of Tarot, its history, the origins of its myths, but was veiled under a guise of mystery. So long as people promote things like "The origins of Tarot are quite obscure.", the truth about Tarot is being relegated to a minor or no consideration. But of course, so long as people believe the origins of Tarot are "obscure", they can profess belief in all kinds of creation myths and expect, quite unreasonably of course, for their opinions to be respected.
telcontar said:
Do you not find a peculiar quality to your comments here? Something perhaps self-contradictory? As soon as you encounter an opinion you do not like, "respect" is abandoned and you instead launch a personal attack, based on your perception of my "mood". So, you do here demonstrate there are opinions you do not respect. Good.
telcontar said:
How would it do that, unless the person already feels small and unimportant? It was a simple and direct question, posed to someone who claimed "[people here] are also willing to look at the (sometimes hard) questions posed them". I guess you disagree with that opinion, and prefer that hard questions, or maybe any questions, not be asked. Since TheLovers2 offered opinions about his perception of "authority" in Tarot, it was reasonable to ask him if he had thought about the basis of his opinion, whether he really considered himself sufficiently knowledgeable about Tarot to offer an informed opinion about this subject. If that makes him feel bad, that is really his problem, and one he should consider as perhaps some kind of answer to the question. Again, and in contradiction to your point, but this undue concern for people's feelings is symptomatic of the kind of "women's domain" in Tarot that has been created, and not to the benefit of intelligent forms of Tarot.
telcontar said:
Well, he did agree with the dogma you are promoting:
"I appreciate the "opinions" of people on all sorts of things, but..."
"appreciation" and "respect" do seem to be easily qualified by a but(t).
And that is fine, so long as one does not hypocritically claim otherwise.
telcontar said:
First, by avoiding the opinions of people who are ignorant about the subject. Second, by listening to the opinions of people who are knowledgeable about the subject. It is reasonable to discuss how one tells the difference, and that too is relevant in a thread about "women's domain" Tarot.
telcontar said:
You use lots of those "buts". I am a big friend of Tarot for fun. Learning the truth is also fun.
telcontar said:
To make itself understood as what?
This isn't about what Tarot needs, except in a metaphorical way, it is about what people need. And the argument that people need to feel good more than they need to learn the truth has been a basic assumption of "women's domain" Tarot. If the opposite, or simply an alien, approach, respecting truth over the concerns about feelings, seems like a "crusade", I will simply point out the Crusades were not all bad and helped to drag Europe out of the Dark Ages. That process is ongoing.
telcontar said:
People do.
The origins of Tarot are quite well known. It was invented in northern Italy in the 15th century as a card game. There is no reason to think it was invented for any other purpose, or that it was used (mainly) for any other purpose until the 18th century. And it was only then, in 1781 specifically, that the foundation for occult Tarot was constructed.
telcontar said:
You are judging me to be "claiming to know the truth and judging about others".
Isn't that correct?
There are truths to know about Tarot. What that implies is that there also many false things to claim to know about Tarot. And that does refute the idea that Tarot is the sum of all (even ignorant) opinions about it.
telcontar said:
No reason to.
telcontar said:
No doubt, but there is no reason to think you would learn anything about the origin of Tarot, since it was not invented on Mars or Venus. If you are trying to say there are kinder ways to disabuse people of utter nonsense than simply pointing out that they are wrong, I would agree with you. On the other hand, kindness often backfires in these matters and many people take "coddling" to be an undue and unwarranted validation of their opinion as at least something to be respected---when that is simply not the case.
And, life is short.
In the end, how kind is it to suggest to people that their ignorance is in any way a good thing? Again, ignorance kills. If you do not imagine that bad ideas about Tarot can be literally dangerous, this article does detail good reasons to think otherwise:
Link removed by moderator.
telcontar said:
Then what is the Tower for? If merely asking someone to question their questionable beliefs is hurtful to the person, whose fault or problem should that be? And why?
telcontar said:
A better place according to whose perceptions of value?
None of the considerations you assume should apply here have any necessary pertinence to a quest for truth.
telcontar said:
I will simply note that you agree with me in the obviously dangerous view that Tarot is about some things, and not about all things.
On the other hand, why is Tarot a tool, and not something else?
How can you know, objectively, what Tarot is or is not?
